


choosing, not ceasing

by mythpoetry



Series: Samifer Love Week 2016 [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, au where Lucifer behaves like his canonical self, most certainly incorrect hebrew, perpetually self-sacrificing Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7709995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythpoetry/pseuds/mythpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam lets the devil ride him out of hell. It's not the worst idea he's ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	choosing, not ceasing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Samifer Love Week 2016  
> July 26th prompt: "Let me see your wings."

Their weird truce has lasted a week. Dean rarely speaks when Lucifer’s around, just comes out of his room to look at Sam hunched over too many books and makes a show of getting extra alcohol or grunting before walking out. He can _see_ when it’s not him, somehow, in the lines of Sam’s rented face, the curve of his shared shoulders. Lucifer doesn’t have to say anything; Dean knows his brother by posture alone, trusts him enough to not make their situation harder. Sam’s grateful. Considering the circumstances, it’s better than he could have hoped for. 

Lucifer himself is quiet most days. Sam assumes he’s resting. Getting him out of the Cage was harder than he expected, even after acquiescing to him riding Sam’s body like a triathlon bike. The last time Lucifer had gripped Sam down to his bones and nerve endings, it had felt. Not good, but. Something like it. A relief, like the feeling of finally pushing in the last piece of a puzzle. Completion.

Sam was lying to himself. It _had_ felt good, years ago, the way a thunderstorm and forest fire and flood were good, full of awe, wonder, large in scope and power. Removed completely from any notion of human morality, he could appreciate them. Maybe Lucifer was rubbing off on him.

Being Lucifer’s tailored suit didn’t feel good this time around. He felt more like a rental. Pulling them both out of hell had stretched the rubber band of his soul past its capacity and left it thin and bruised. Everything ached, even his fingernails.

“The Cage wasn’t designed to be escaped,” he says. “You can thank dear old dad for that. How’s this: Our Father, not in Heaven - ”

“Can you -" Sam starts. “Do you think you could maybe warn me, before you use my mouth to you know, blaspheme?”

“Which is worse, Sam? Feeling like a puppet, or blasphemy?”

“Being inside my head doesn’t give you the right to dissect -"

“Wow, that looks awkward,” Dean calls from the doorway. “You really look like a dork.” He half smiles and then says, “ _Dorks_ , I mean.”

“Thanks,” Sam says. “That’s helpful.”

“Listen,” Dean says, not making eye contact, “if you’re gonna Jekyll-and-Hyde it up in here, you could at least go to your room. It’s kind of freaky.”

“Certainly,” Lucifer says with Sam’s tongue. Sam feels himself smiling but can’t do anything about it, like someone’s pinned up the sides of his mouth. It’s not pleasant. _Stop it,_ he tries to say, but nothing happens. Lucifer gathers up Sam’s body like a coat and walks it to the room they share.

_I’m not going to do this,_ Sam says furiously, _I will kick you out on your_ ass _, I will -_

“make you wish - oh.”

“I didn’t want to antagonize your brother any further,” Lucifer says. “He’s been. Well, not nice, but none of us are nice. He’s been more civil than I ever expected.” Lucifer flexes Sam’s hand, like he still doesn’t understand the mechanics of flesh. “I have no desire to gag you.”

The thought brings images that Sam hastily buries. “So that was you, what? Tiptoeing around Dean?”

“We need Dean, Sam. More than that, he’s your brother.” Lucifer trails his  _(Sam’s)_ hand over the edge of the mirror they set up for convenience’s sake. “I want -”

“Don’t,” Sam says, getting up suddenly, pacing, because this is  _his_ room, this is  _his_ body, no one else is calling the shots here, he has to - “don’t feed me some stupid line about how you want me to be happy. You told me that once and then you tried to kill Dean. Let’s just - look at this as a job. Once it’s done, you can go somewhere else. I don’t care.”

For a long time Lucifer says nothing and Sam, inexplicably, starts to feel alone. Too mired in the solitude of flesh.

_That was an overreaction,_ Lucifer finally says, whisper-dark from the back of Sam’s mind. _I shouldn’t have done that._

Sam wants to claw out his own eyeballs with a spoon. The last time he felt this frustrated at a conversation he didn’t have a soul. Of course Lucifer would refer to the attempted murder of Sam’s brother as ‘an overreaction’. He breathes in slowly. “I don’t want you to apologize. I just want -”

_Sam. Please. I want to explain. What I said to you, all of it was true. But Dean -_

“I know,” Sam says, deflating, because he does; he’d been there. He’d felt Lucifer’s complicated rage against Michael, felt his even brighter rage at the thought of him hurt, the incandescent _fury_ at Dean for being what Lucifer’s brother wasn’t, loyal, steadfast, a solid pillar of true devotion. Dean refusing to move from Sam’s side, through the end of the world. Through everything.

“I know,” Sam says again. He runs his hand through his hair, squeezes his left palm with his right fingers. “Look, you don’t have to be - this. Locked up. That’s not the uncomfortable part. I’m -” Sam pauses, tastes his next words on his tongue and detects no deceit - “I’m really fine with it.”

He looks at himself in the mirror, marks the exact moment when Lucifer slowly stretches himself into Sam. Watches the lines of his face smooth out, watches his mouth curve just a little crueler. It’s sort of fascinating.

“I want to show you,” Lucifer says. “How great we were as one, _truly_ great.”

“I remember,” Sam says sharply. That version of himself hurts. All naivete and blame.

“There must be some kind of trust between us, Sam, if we’re going to -”

“Stop it! Let’s get one thing straight, here. I never trusted you. Not then and not now.” Sam laughs bitterly. “Short of showing me your true intentions written across your _soul,_ there’s nothing that could ever make me trust you.”

Lucifer stares for a long time in the mirror. Sam watches his face shift back and forth, edges blurring, minor changes smoothing out and coming back. It’s disorienting. He stands abruptly. Sam can feel the air shifting, tugging around him. He has the uncomfortable sensation of a thunderstorm erupting right in front of him, only there’s nothing he can see physically, just a paradoxical feeling of ice burning through his bones, his blood, and what was that _ringing_ in his head, just getting louder and louder -

**אף תמכתיך בימין צדקי** , Lucifer says.   **י אל תירא כי עמך אני אל תשתע כי אני אלהיך אמצתיך אף עזרתיך -**

Sam hears the mirror crack, only maybe it’s actually the entire room, his head is _splitting_ , clear resonance screaming directly into his brain, he can’t see, he can’t think -

**שְׁמוּאֵל. Shemu’ el. Sam. Open your eyes.**

Sam does. He sees - he sees -

Light spilling out of every pore, every strand of his hair, filling every crack in the room, stretching and smothering all it touches - and - and -

Two columns of burning gold, only so pure that it was clear, lengthening until they fill everything in Sam’s periphery, distorting the air around them in waves and spirals. Sam tries to focus on the colors they radiate, white more than white, dawn more than dawn, and he can’t so instead he shuts his eyes and  _hears_ them, bells chimes crystal water storms glass and he _knows_ , he can _feel_ it, feel Lucifer’s every thought for him, all particles of his light reaching, twirling around the whole of him like eternity, _Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam -_

When Sam finally opens his eyes, his face is wet. He gasps like he’s been drowning. The room is surprisingly untouched. He notes that the mirror is split in two. _Lucifer,_ he tries to say. _Lucifer._

In that particular way he has, Lucifer smiles. It’s a small reflection of the what he’s bared in the last few minutes, but even so Sam feels like immolation, like death. Like sunrise. Lucifer tilts Sam’s head. _His_ head. Shared mind, shared fingertips, shared heartbeat.

_Made for each other_ , he says. Or maybe they both do.


End file.
